Mikey and the Chickadee

Chapter 12 - Part 2

After finishing our food we began to clean up. Stephanie coaxed my mom from the kitchen as I packed away leftovers.

"I find it hard to relax when I'm perfectly capable of pitching in," she lamented.

"No one's expecting you to relax," Stephanie said, guiding her to the couch. "I'm just asking you to sit still for once in your life."

When it was just the two of us alone in the kitchen, Stephanie said under her breath, "Dad has told me recently that they're set to retire early. They have plenty of savings. I think Mom is being too cautious."

I thought this over for a moment before muttering in reply, "Maybe she's just afraid to look for something different."

"I think that's exactly what it is." She scrubbed at a pot for a few more seconds and then set it in the sink. The edge of the counter was finished in white ceramic bullnose tiles, cracked and chipped in places, stained slightly in the battering deluge of time. Stephanie leaned against them now, peering out the small box-window which overlooked the backyard, bathing in the day's failing light. "She thinks she still has to answer to people other than herself."

"Hmmm." I began loading plates into the dishwasher. "People like who?"

"Well, us, I guess. Dad. You and me. She can do literally anything she wants. I just want her to know how true that is. I want her to believe it."

"Have you told her?"

"Not as plainly as that, but yeah, I think I've made my thoughts known."

"And what does she have to say about it?"

"Not so much." Stephanie returned to her responsibilities in the sink. "I think I need to approach it with her in a different way—and maybe with a little more delicacy. The way Mom and I are with each other...I really don't know. She's just so...I don't know." She hauled the ancient green-enameled dutch oven over to the stovetop, where it was perched on a burner to dry. "I just need to work on being more delicate."

My mom's life—a saga to my eyes, a true legend—was elusive, Delphian, something I felt I would never fully assemble in my mind so that it could be understood from its dawning until now. A cluster of concealed horrors she'd faced in her childhood (countable on one hand, according to her, but no less than unspeakable) made her experience into one with which my own could never be compared. I had concluded at some point in college that, although I could never know her completely, I would seek further understanding whenever a conversation lent itself. It was all I could do not to take her presence in my life for granted, a passivity of which I realized I had been recently quite guilty.

"Overall, though, do you think she's happy?" I asked.

Stephanie's reply was short and not loud enough for me to hear, but her expression sufficiently conveyed her uncertainty. We had been speaking like stowaways, which in itself could be enough to elevate my mom's suspicion.

"Won't you need a car in Fern Hill?" Stephanie asked in a plain voice. "How will you come home to visit?"

"I've thought about that a little. It's cheaper to live up there, but not enough for me to get anything nice." I laughed. "It'll be something as old as I am, probably."

"You know Dad'll want you to get something Japanese. My neighbor is selling his Civic. It looks at least ten or fifteen years old. He's probably not asking too much."

"I can do without for a while. I need to save a little first."

"Mom and Dad helped out with mine," she said. "Don't be afraid to ask."

"Yeah," I said. "I know."

Once the kitchen had been restored to a general state of order, we joined my parents in the living room. Together they looked comprehensively tired, which prompted Stephanie to suggest skipping a movie.